Dan Raftery

President, Raftery Resource Network Inc.

Dan has been a management and research consultant since 1986. He started his first consulting firm, Prime Consulting Group, in 1996 and turned it over to his partner in 2003 when he launched Raftery Resource Network.

R2N is a diverse team of independent professionals from consumer goods production and distribution industries, who solve business problems for clients in any segment of the supply chain. R2N functions as change agent for innovative solutions tailored to the individual client .

Dan has authored over three-dozen reports on a variety of leading-edge subjects for food, drug and housewares industry associations. For individual companies, he and his network team deliver custom assignments for manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and service providers to the consumer goods industry. Dan is a regular columnist and featured writer for Advantage magazine.

Dan’s history in the food industry began in the mid-sixties in supermarket retailing. In 1985, Dan moved to Willard Bishop Consulting, Ltd., where he contributed to industry initiatives such as Efficient Consumer Response, Category Management, and Frequency Marketing. At Prime, Dan consulted to several key industry committees including those on invoice accuracy, pallet costs, and unsaleables. He has been the principal consultant on several industry reports in these areas and others, such as the NACDS/American Greetings Research Council and the FMI/GMA Case Pack Optimization Work Group. Dan regularly contributes to industry conferences and facilitates executive share groups and cross-functional action teams inside client organizations.

I agree with all the positive comments about why this should work for Target -- brand awareness among urbanites and students, localized variety and a smaller footprint. What would put this home run out of the park would be to add a digital commerce component.

Although the fourth quarter may be the toughest one to forecast, tools are better than ever. Add in the uphill re-balancing of supply chain inventory that has been going on for the last few years and it is easy to see why most retailers are enjoying increasingly rapid turns.Shoppers are never happy when they miss out on that special gift, advertised or not. Retailers have a new solution for this, but it is also the new competition to in-store sales. Direct to consumer fulfillment can be initiated from anywhere.Out-of-stock in the store? Ship it in two days. But don't let the shopper place the order somewhere else. Make it easier to do it through your digital commerce. And don't sell that last one. Keep it in the store for the tactile sell.

Since this is an early stage, those interested in gamification would be wise to look for learnings from other similar engagement activities. I'm pretty sure the initial appeal/curiosity factor is a given at this point, especially if Millennials are the target audience.So I would focus on what might turn them off, as might be found in the experiences of social media giant Facebook, for example. If the target audience includes an older demographic then the important learnings might revolve around getting them interested.

Retail is operations-driven, which relies heavily on data, but in a supporting role. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for connecting the dots inside an organization so each function can see the result of their actions and decisions on the enterprise -- especially on their attempts to sell as much stuff as possible, to as many people as possible, as often as possible (the reason retailers exist). Oh and at a profit.

As they have become smarter and a little bigger, smartphones have become the device of choice for the technologically-unchallenged. Smartphones are replacing more than tablets and PCs. To name a few, they are replacing wrist watches, calculators, land-line phones, game consoles, TVs and social interaction. What we are seeing is close to addictive behavior. How can they not replace everything when they are habitually held in your face day and night? So, from a pragmatic view, anyone wanting to participate in digital commerce better look good and function correctly on smartphones.

Certainly the options available from the omnichannel environment make it more difficult to predict demand at any one point of retail. That's why suppliers are drawn to Big Data. However for established products, retailers should be close enough 90 to 95 percent of the time. That means new products (which could arguably be most SKUs in the fashion world) are the wildcards. Some manufacturers use staged release or even crowdfunding feedback to help predict broader demand. And they still get it wrong sometimes. But if you're wrong on the short side you can react, and so what? If you are wrong on the long side, well that's a problem.

These are two unique and forward-thinking retailers. Both approaches have a common element. They each produce a physical presence. In a society increasingly drawn to the virtual world, these seem like investments that should have some long-term return, especially the Meijer museum. The big differences are the multi-market exposure and local involvement of the Zappos murals program. Hopefully graffiti "artists" will not feel left out and will refrain from adding their contribution.

I'm wondering if the Deloitte study differentiates by type of retailer, or better yet, by product category. Seems like most attention is on soft goods and electronics when worrying about how retailers can capitalize on digital shopping habits, rather than getting left behind.Maybe that's a good way to make sense out of the changes in the path to purchase. In other words, retailers should think about focussing attention and digital participation budget on the products that shoppers increasingly buy or at least research online, The corollary: improve the in-store experience for the other products.

Pretty hard to be optimistic about a business model that delivers convenience over price in these times where even well-off consumers have been conditioned to look for the lowest price. But in some metros, maybe this "Meals on Wheels" for the skateboard set will find a niche.

Still skeptical here. Not sure the business model has been thought through. Definitely a publicity stunt, but one that could be easily out-gunned tomorrow. Good to see progress in the FAA rules department, which of course will also not last should a drone cause an aircraft incident. Yup, skeptical.

Fortune has created a wonderful performance benchmark for company leaders. And since any type of company can make the list, it offers a scorecard for US business of all stripes. Attitude starts at the top, so it's a bit prejudicial to focus on front line manager attitudes solely. Sure they need to implement policy, but they don't set it.

I'm looking at a 12 inch tall stack of books published a quarter century ago under the joint industry Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) initiative. Kroger is one of the retailers who embraced the total system form the start. Meijer and HEB are two more. ECR was never proposed as a quick fix. Those who embarked on that long journey are still traveling the road to success.

Good for TINA to keep an eye on this and to pressure companies to advertise truthfully. (Could they please turn their attention to the presidential campaign ads?) But Walmart should not be singled out here. Plenty of suppliers sneak around the concept, much to the chagrin of legitimate claims by companies who really do still manufacture in the US.

The celebrity chef endorsement and involvement with a grocer is a timely way to address some of the more important segments of the fragmented, no-longer-mass market. Housewares companies proved long ago that these engagements work on several fronts, including design, marketing and sales. Glad to see similar arrangements catching on in food retail. A natural.